


the brightness bursts and bears the rose

by icicaille



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, F/F, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-22 22:48:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2524538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icicaille/pseuds/icicaille
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eponine and Cosette pick out Halloween costumes; catharsis ensues.</p>
<p>
  <em>“Yes,” Eponine mutters, her voice low and rough and rusty like an ill-used tool, like it had been the first time she called out to Cosette through the heavy iron gates of the garden one night in June. “Yes, I ought to be a devil, or a witch,"—her voice catches in her throat almost like a sob—"or some other wretched creature.” She is a fool to have come here at all, to have imagined she might play dress-up and walk hand-in-hand with this girl at some rich man’s ball, to have hoped the walls between them are not so impenetrable as they appear.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	the brightness bursts and bears the rose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AbschaumNo1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbschaumNo1/gifts).



> Written for AbschaumNo1's prompt: "Éponine/Cosette, picking out Halloween costumes." This probably got a little more serious than you may have anticipated, but I hope you enjoy nonetheless!

“—and it will be wonderful!” Cosette thrusts what appeared to be a dozen lengths of fabric into her hands, and Eponine finds herself nearly stumbling under the weight of them all. She has never seen anything like it, even at the dressmakers’ shop, whose windows she dares to peer through in the occasional flight of fancy: the vast swathes of colors and textures, the quality of the silk that shimmers in the fading rays of the sun, the softness of the material as it slides over the callouses of her hands... it is too much. As Cosette beckons her into the parlor that is somehow always shot through with light despite the wind and the rain outside, she is reminded again of how small and filthy her world had been before this strange, impossible thing blossomed between them.

“Oh, Eponine, we shall look so lovely, the pair of us in our costumes,” Cosette says, twirling around the room excitedly. “Marius will be delighted! You must meet his grandfather, too; I can see why he and Marius did not speak for so long—men can be so stubborn with their politics—but he means well, of course, and it was very gracious of him to invite us, though I suspect it may have been entirely for Marius’ sake; the poor boy must be so lonely—“

“Cosette,” Eponine interrupts. “Are you not…” She swallows heavily and looks down at the floor. “Don’t you think it’s a bit strange, you attending this ball with me, when not three months ago you and Monsieur Marius were engaged to be married?” 

Cosette pauses; it seems to Eponine that she is choosing her words carefully, which she tends to do whenever the subject of Marius arises between them. “It is true that I upset Marius very much when I told him I could not marry him, and I am sorry for that.” She twists a lock of hair around her finger and toys with it, which Eponine finds a queer sort of nervous habit for a girl with such bright eyes and frank speech. “But now that you and I are friends,” Cosette continues, “and now that my father has revealed so much of himself to me, I—I simply need time, do you see? Finally there is light in the corners of my mind where there has only ever been dark, and I think I must attend to those first before I can be Madame la Baronne.” 

Then Cosette is silent, and all at once everything Eponine ever felt for Marius comes crashing down on her like a great flood. She had wanted to die for him—and would have, according to Marius’ doctor friend, had the bullet not narrowly missed piercing her lung—she had wanted to _die_ for a man who rarely spared her more than a smile or a nod as they passed in the hallway, and although his face still sometimes emerges in her dreams, unbidden, as she lies on her thin mattress at night, now she finds that her thoughts turn instead to this girl balanced unaccountably between them. Eponine knows she has no right to think of Cosette, not when she so mistreated her as a child, and certainly not when there was a time she wished Cosette had never existed so that Marius’ affections might stray elsewhere, but she cannot stamp out the stupid, inexplicable hope that one day they might be—

She is stirred by the sound of Cosette’s voice, floating through the air like the lark they used to call her once. “But let us speak no more on sad things, Eponine. The ball is only a fortnight away, you know, and we must be serious about our preparations! Come, sit by me.” She smiles as Eponine crosses the room to join her on the settee, and Eponine feels her throat tightening as it used to whenever Marius would glance in her direction.

“I have begun to sew my costume already—a hummingbird, do you like it?” Cosette says, holding up the patches of fabric stitched together for Eponine to see. “So all that remains to be done is yours.” Digging a pin cushion out of the the folds of her dress, she picks up a needle and prepares to make the first incision, then glances towards Eponine. “Have you any idea of what you might like to be? Name anything, and I am sure we can piece it together from this collection of old scraps.”

Cosette gestures towards the heap of silk on the floor, and suddenly Eponine cannot stand the softness in her eyes, the way she gently presses Eponine’s hand, her smiles and her big house and her pretty dresses.

“Yes,” Eponine mutters, her voice low and rough and rusty like an ill-used tool, like it had been the first time she called out to Cosette through the heavy iron gates of the garden one night in June. “Yes, I ought to be a devil, or a witch,"—her voice catches in her throat almost like a sob—"or some other wretched creature.” She is a fool to have come here at all, to have imagined she might play dress-up and walk hand-in-hand with this girl at some rich man’s ball, to have hoped the walls between them are not so impenetrable as they appear.

Cosette frowns and sets down her needle. “Eponine, I do not understand—I did not mean to upset you—“ She reaches out, but Eponine twists away from her grasp and the touch she craves so desperately she fears it may burn her.

“It is nothing you have done,” Eponine says flatly. "It is only what I deserve. How you can even bear to look at me in your house after everything, I do not know. You say you want us to sit together and talk friendly, like we are two ladies who met by chance in the park or the market, and you invite me to some dance held by a man we both loved,”—she has never wondered before whether Cosette knew of her devotion to Marius, though she supposes it no longer matters—“who I wanted to take away from you, because I am a miserable, selfish wretch; when the truth is, we do not belong together, you and me. I have been stuck in the gutter all my life and you, Cosette,” she laughs briefly, despairingly, “you came from the same but ascended like an angel.”

Now it is said. Now Cosette will realize her folly, and will throw Eponine back onto the street where she belongs, and Eponine will never have to endure those maddening smiles and that bright laugh ever again. Now the truth is out, and she almost smiles with the relief of it.

Cosette looks down at her hands and does not speak for a long moment. Then, just as Eponine feels she might burst from apprehension, Cosette murmurs, “Do you know, when I first recognized you months ago, I very nearly ran away and vowed to never set foot in the garden again in case you returned and saw me? I was so frightened; I imagined you might be there to take me back to your parents, and all I could think of was how many years it took me to stop dreaming of that awful place.” Cosette closes her eyes for an instant, and Eponine feels something sharp and sick twist in her belly. “But now things have changed, and neither of us are the same little girls any longer. Now you are good, Eponine. I know how you saved Marius at the barricades, and I know how hard it must be for you to sit here with me when fate has forged such different paths for us, and yet you do, and I cannot tell you how grateful I am to have a friend after being all alone with Papa for so long. Please, Eponine,” she says gently, covering Eponine's hand with her own, “you must know that you are good.”

_Good_ , Eponine thinks, _good, I am—?_ No, that is not right. She is bad, the devil, like she had told that old man once who stupidly called her an angel; it is Cosette who is good, not her, and anything else simply cannot be.

But suddenly tears prick at the corners of her eyes, and Eponine wrenches her hand out of Cosette's grasp, scrubs at them furiously—she will _not_ cry, she hasn't cried since she was ten years old—says, "Do you think so?" Her voice trembles, as if she were a child tugging at her mother's skirts.

"I do," Cosette says firmly, entwining Eponine's hand with her own once more, "and perhaps one day you will, too." Then she leans closer and presses her lips to Eponine's cheek. It is like suffering a blow to the chest while floating, weightless, through the air, and when Cosette pulls back, her face is almost as flushed as Eponine imagines her own to be. 

Eponine nods, because she does not know what to say—does not know what words could bear the weight of this thing—and Cosette smiles at her in return, and for a fleeting moment Eponine loses herself in the throes of a terrifying, intoxicating hope.


End file.
